TALK RADIO WATCH

Silencing the airwaves as 'hate speech'

Exclusive: Kathy Shaidle exposes latest, backdoor Fairness Doctrine

Kathy Shaidle is a blogging pioneer whose FiveFeetOfFury.com is now in its 12th year. Her most recent book â€“ "The Tyranny of Nice: How Canada Crushes Freedom in the Name of Human Rights, and Why It Matters to Americans" â€“ features an introduction by Rush Limbaugh guest host Mark Steyn.

Editor’s note: Kathy Shaidle will be attending next week’s Freedom of Speech & Religion Conference in Washington, D.C., and will not be able to file a new column for Friday, Oct. 30. She will return the following week with a fresh Talk Radio Watch.

This week, the strangest story in the world of conservative talk radio came from Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator.

Lord, a member of the United Church of Christ, says his denomination, in league with the Federal Communications Commission, plans to silence talk radio by using the increasingly familiar “hate crime” ploy.

It’s a bizarre and complex tale, but Lord patiently connects the dots. While we need to worry about the Fairness Doctrine, “localism” and other threats to free speech coming from on high, we also have to watch for “grass-roots” censorship campaigns like these.

Perfectly timed to coincide with White House attempts to marginalize Fox News, CNN aired a multipart report that questioned the popularity and power of conservative talk radio (FREE video).

Other than Fox News, talk radio is the only place you can hear another point of view. But CNN can’t deal with that. Like a whiny child who needs all the stuffed animals in the toy store, it won’t rest until it has everything.

See, what it wants is a new kind of Fairness Doctrine, when what it really needs is a spanking.

Limbaugh’s longtime call screener, “Bo Snerdley” – who happens to be African-American – came to his boss’s defense (FREE audio), and, in a gem of a panel discussion, Fox News liberal commentator Juan Williams struck back at the guest who called him a “house negro” for defending Limbaugh’s right to buy a sports team (FREE video – a real must-see!).

Speaking of “Balloon Boy,” Laura Ingraham lit into the media, including talk radio, for hyping the hoax (FREE audio).

“It kind of puts egg on all of our faces,” she said. “We all become part of the media problem. I’ll throw myself right into the mix. Because you really can’t take your eyes off it, but meanwhile you know there are all these really important things happening, not only in our country but around the world.”

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager’s talk-show archives are only available to premium subscribers, which is a shame, because this week, he covered lots of great topics, and his guests included longtime talk-radio colleague and close friend Larry Elder.

Shortly after I started on radio, my station’s account executives – those who sell radio time to advertisers – began getting distressing phone calls. Why is Elder so “offensive”? Advertising agencies and sponsors received numerous letters complaining about me from “the black community.” These letters included statements I allegedly made. …

Of course, I never said those things. Had I done so, I would have – and should have – been fired before the next commercial break. Wouldn’t anyone with an ounce of common sense know that?

It’s a depressingly familiar story. Luckily, Elder stood fast in the face of those baseless attacks.

P.S.: Dennis Prager’s “Prager University” videos are available to anyone. As he does on his radio program, Prager tackles big “meaning of life” questions in a thoughtful, gentle and entertaining way. Highly recommended (FREE videos)!

Author and weekly guest Mark Steyn was late keeping his usual Thursday “appointment” with Hewitt, leading the host to tease him that “you were no longer going to be associated with talk radio, that the White House had gotten to you, Mark Steyn.”

Steyn replied, “Well, you know, I think this is truly pathetic. I mean, this is a guy who came to office on the platform of being willing to sit down across the table from Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and all the rest of it. Yet they’re too big a bunch of sissies to take a bit of criticism from Fox News and talk radio. He’s the president of the United States. It’s time to man up. I mean, this is just girly-boy stuff, and I’m tired of it.”

G. Gordon Liddy

Liddy fielded questions about Watergate from students at a NYU journalism class, giving them a rare opportunity to interview a true “primary source” (FREE audio in two parts).

Michael Savage

Having himself been banned from Britain, Michael Savage was the perfect person to interview Geert Wilders right after that Dutch politician’s ban was finally lifted. The pair spoke at length about the threat of radical Islam and the craven hypocrisy of the politically correct, elite Western establishment (FREE videos, also in two parts).

Finally, from our “There, I fixed it” file:

“The radio that only plays NPR”!

Sadly for conservative comedians everywhere, that’s not entirely true. However, the all-new (and redundantly named) “NPR Radio” does come preprogrammed with NPR stations, presumably because the publicly funded, left-leaning stations’ most ardent fans are getting older and more forgetful.

One interesting feature: “If planning a vacation, the radio stores two weeks of programming so it’s easy to catch up upon your return.”

But maybe conservative talk-radio broadcasters are missing out. Why not offer an Internet radio that’s preprogrammed for Rush, Beck and others?

After all, more than half of the conservative Republicans in a new survey “indicated that they try to watch or listen to [Glenn] Beck on a daily basis, with some going to great lengths to ensure they (and their families) do not miss a thing.”